Dive Brief:
- Colleges and universities can accommodate students on the autism spectrum by limiting sensory distractions in classroom design and keeping their needs in mind with teaching.
- The Guardian reports that faculty can focus on students’ strengths, rather than deficits, avoid ambiguity in assignments and exams, and offer lecture slides and handouts in advance of particular class periods.
- Other strategies include providing proactive support for students engaging in group work and being accommodating about a student’s needs to manage anxiety.
Dive Insight:
The Americans with Disabilities Act is about more than making buildings wheelchair accessible. The regulation also requires colleges and universities to make their entire online presence accessible to students with disabilities. As institutions rely more heavily on digital tools for every aspect of operations, including enrollment, registration, financial aid, and learning management, there needs to be a concentrated effort on access and inclusion. Do page designs promote easy reading? Are photos and videos captioned? Does the learning module accommodate screen readers?
Kenneth Green, founding director of the Campus Computing Project, said at Educause’s 2015 conference that digital resources and services for users with disabilities present a “lawsuit waiting to happen” at many institutions. Unlike cybersecurity, which can seem like an intractable problem for CIOs, fixing web accessibility is straightforward — and it’s required by law.